Why the learning deficit should not surprise us

Textbooks often don’t reach students in Staterun schools on time. This is a drag on education

The Panna Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh has one of the finest forests in India. Inside those thick, deciduous jungles, there’s a ‘primary school’: Two decrepit rooms with blackboards, a couple of discoloured educational charts and maps on their dirty cream walls, one temporary teacher, a defunct toilet, and the worst of all these deficits, a non-functional midday meal scheme. “It has been like this for years now,” the teacher, a young man, told me. “Nothing reaches this place on time, including textbooks”.

Every time I hear about the learning deficit of students who go to State-run institutions, I am reminded of this school. In the last decade or so, India has upgraded its school infrastructure, but, as this school showed, it’s still a work in progress. So it is not surprising that despite a spike in primary enrolment, the progress in learning remains patchy.

While problems related to physical infrastructure and midday meal schemes in primary schools are discussed widely, I don’t find much conversation on another key issue that has a serious bearing on the learning levels of students: Textbooks, their quality, and timely delivery. There are many states where students don’t receive their full set of textbooks at the start of the school session, which is April. “The State is consumed by NCERT textbooks. But we must remember these books are used by only 12,000 Central Board of Secondary Education schools. What about textbooks used in other Staterun schools? There has been no nationallevel analysis of the quality of these textbooks,” says Dhir Jhingran, executive director, Language and Learning Foundation, New Delhi.

In states, textbooks are either produced by their own State Council of Educational Research and Training agencies or textbook corporations. There are four problems with textbooks in states: Production, printing, distribution and quality. Many authors who write these textbooks have little expertise on how books for children should be framed or an understanding of pedagogy. Their printing is often messy and there is hardly any quality control. I was aghast to know that many of these textbooks are written during ‘workshops’ of authors/teachers, without any guidelines. Unsurprisingly, these textbooks are information-loaded, the language is often not friendly to children and the context alien to local students.

Coming back to the critical supply-chain management of textbooks, Oxfam, an NGO, provided me with information on Odisha. According to them, in the 2017-18 session, students of upper primary schools in two districts — Mayurbhanj and Bolangir — did not get their textbooks until August. The report added that there is corruption in the printing and supply system of textbooks.

The good news, however, is that states such as Himachal Pradesh are trying to cut delays in the delivery of textbooks, which ranged in the hill state from 2-137 days after the commencement of the academic session. The problems were: Lack of single person accountability at the block level offices; inefficient supply chain leading to duplication of work and delays due to manual intervention in the supply management ecosystem. Every year, more than 55 lakh books are distributed to eight lakh eligible students across 15,000 schools.

The state government enlisted a consultancy firm, Samagra, to devise a simple way of tracking the supply of textbooks. The project is funded by the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation. Along with ensuring inventory stock checks at depot level and better coordination between the education department, the Himachal Pradesh Board of School Education and Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, for the release of textbook printing tender, there has been a streamlining of book collection by block officials at depots.

It has also put in place an electronic indenting system, which helps in ensuring faster processing of indents and book distribution. An online dashboard tracks textbook collection status from depots to blocks and an IVRS system helps teachers to confirm receipt of the textbook through their mobiles. A Whatsapp group takes care of real-time information dissemination and a special helpline has been set up for blocklevel officials to get information or solve problems related to textbook distribution.

In India, there is no one-size-fits-all solution for problems. But Himachal Pradesh’s effort of timely distribution of textbooks is worth emulating by other states.

NCERT TEXTBOOKS ARE USED BY ONLY 12,000 CBSE SCHOOLS. BUT WHAT ABOUT TEXTBOOKS USED IN STATERUN SCHOOLS? THERE HAS BEEN NO NATIONALLEVEL ANALYSIS OF THE QUALITY OF THESE TEXTBOOKS